


Losing Wings

by Heroisback



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Fallen Angels, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Seraphim, author doesn't know whether it's seraph or seraphim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:26:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29153517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heroisback/pseuds/Heroisback
Summary: There's many reasons for an angel to lose it's wings
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)





	Losing Wings

They'd lost their first pair of wings when the Hierarchy collapsed, crumbling straight out of the sky into nothingness. That was a failure on their part, they supposed. After all, what kind of protector were they if they couldn't stop the Heavens from falling. Of course, there wasn't anything anyone could have done about that, but they supposed it still counted.

Seraphim were unlike other angels, in the sense that where other angels beauty came from their inconceivability, vast spirals of infinite wings and eyes, seraphim were glorious in their simplicity. Six wings, one duty, one will. Seraphim in the plural sense didn't exist anymore, they were the only one left. The others had all lost their other pairs before the Fall, and everyone knows an angel cannot exist without its wings.

They do well enough on Earth, blending in well with their human form. It isn't perfect perhaps, skin too pale and eyes too red, hair so dark it's almost blue. Rumours start floating around, people thinking they're a vampire, people in the know believing it. They make do. The slowness of their human life is unfamiliar, uncomfortable at first. Not being on guard at every second of all of time takes some getting used to and they don't know what to do with themselves. Eventually they start a garden. They find that they quite like red roses, basic but nice. Their rose garden flourishes.

They have not completely abandoned their duties of course, still bound by the Higher Power that exists even when the higher powers have been destroyed. Protect humans, defend mortal creatures from the Fallen Ones. They're all Fallen know, they suppose, but those that were Fallen before the Fall know how to be cruel like no others.

It's during one of these nights, when they sit up and watch, that their life changes yet again. They do not sleep, having no need to, so they usually stay up and read, keeping a look out. They cannot Watch, a downside of being a seraph, they're not one of the ones gifted with the Sight, but they can still sense disturbances. By the time they make it to this disturbance they find a house in ruin, all embers and Fallen One cackling. They slay the Fallen One, compounding its Self across all realities and eliminating it. They look down to find a child staring up at them in awe and in fear.

The child calls them 'mama' and they in return call it by its name. It doesn't take long for them to warm up to it, to take it under their wing, both metaphorically and literally. It is called Jack, and it takes them some time to mentally start referring to Jack as 'him' rather than 'it' but they figure it out. It's just them, them and their Jackie, Jack and his mama. (They hear Jackie-boy in a movie and find it just delightful, as does the boy in question. It sticks around and soon they cannot remember the last time they called him Jack.) They raise Jackie as their own, and for the first time in all of their existence they think they feel love. Are sure of it, even.

They lost their second pair when their ward died. Their _son_. He is fighting alongside various mortal creatures against a Fallen One, and they are not quick enough to block the piercing blow that throws Jack across the sky, crashing into the tarmac with a sick crunch and splatter, their son, their baby boy, dead. Their wings burn away and it hurts, but not nearly as much as knowing that they failed, that they couldn't do the one thing that Creation meant for them to do, couldn't protect the most important thing in the world. The Fallen One is compounded and slain, as painful as they can make it, and they cradle the tiny frail body of their little boy, not so little anymore, almost a man now but not quite, forever their little Jackie-boy. His beautiful blue eyes are dull as they gently brush his soft hair away and the seraph _screams_ , a sound heard across all realities, a sound more painful than anything any mortal could imagine. They weep like they have never wept before and they haven't, not even when the Heavens fell and they lost it all.

When their precious boy comes back they weep again, pulling him into their arms and holding him as close as they can. He cries too, unable to express the horrors he has seen and the things he has done, but they do not care, because their darling boy is back home, and they do not care what he has done to get back, do not care that he is no longer fully human, that one of his eyes is red, more crimson and striking than either of their own.

Nothing will ever hurt their son again. No mortal, no creature, no Fallen One and no former Angel, not even the Heavens themselves, were they still around, could take this child from them again. They're willing to risk it all, risk the whole world and their last two wings for his safety. They will not fail again.


End file.
